Based on the framed narrative structure, inherited from Giovanni Boccaccio, “El heptamerón” is a collection of seventy-two stories that distill the arsenals of the European Renaissance and humanist imaginary.
Margarita de Navarra is a Renaissance figure who must necessarily be part of the history of literature, not only because of the quality and diffusion of her writings, but also because she presents through her pen a modern vision of femininity and sexuality.
Daughter of Charles de Angoulême and Louise de Savoie, sister of King François I of France, also called Marguerite de Angoulême, Marguerite d’Alençon. She was born in Angoulême on April 11, 1492 and died on December 21, 1549. As a noble courtesan, sister of the monarch, she was forced to marry in 1509 with Charles IV, Duke of Alençon, but he died in 1525. Two years later she she married the King of Navarre, Enrique II of Albret, with whom she had a daughter and a son who died very young.
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From a very young age he was interested in poetry, classics, philosophers, art and many more intellectual issues that earned him the title of true humanist. He befriended theologians, poets, and artists; He was part of various academies and literary circles; he became interested in the contemporary doctrines of Martin Luther and John Calvin. He spoke and wrote in French, Spanish, and Italian; he knew Greek and ancient Latin. He wrote numerous poems of a religious nature, such as, for example, The dialogue in the form of nocturnal vision (1533), consisting of 1,260 verses, written in terza rhyme, which reflect on women and although they start from a clearly Christian vision, it is already left see her original look at the position of women, especially that of a dead girl’s soul and the way of salvation (probably inspired by the death of her niece); or, The prisons of the queen of Navarre, in which various philosophical and theological questions similar to Calvinist expressions are already expressed.
However, his best known and to some extent original work is, without a doubt, the collection of stories that was given the name of El heptamerón and in some editions, Los cuentos de la reina de Navarra, published posthumously in 1558 The narrative structure on two levels, one framed within the other, is not new, since it had already been used by Boccaccio or Chaucer. Neither is the sexual and spicy content of the stories. But what is original is the vision of sexuality and that, in addition, it comes from a feminine pen, as if that were not enough, noble and to finish off the wife of the monarch of one of the most important kingdoms of the European Renaissance.
Follow the news of El Espectador on Google NewsThe plot is similar to that used in the framed stories: a group of people, all of high birth, are forced to take refuge from a storm in the town of Sarrance at the Abbey of Our Lady of the Stone. During seven evenings, each of the members of the group must tell a story that adapts to the theme proposed for each day. It is called heptamerón, precisely because it collects the stories of seven gatherings. From the titles of each session, the tone that is imprinted on the stories can be seen and a photograph of the sociological concerns of the moment is presented: (i) In which the bad things that women do to men and men are collected to women; (ii) In which it is about what awakens everyone’s fantasy; (iii) In which it is about the ladies who in their relationships only seek honesty, and the wickedness and hypocrisy of some clergymen; (iv) In which it is mainly the virtuous patience and attention of the ladies to win their husbands and the prudence that men have used to preserve the honor of their house and their lineage; (v) In the one that deals with the virtue of the daughters and women who hold their honor in higher esteem than their pleasure, of those who regard the opposite and the simplicity of some others; (vi) In which it is about the deception of men to women, of women to men and between women, by greed, revenge and malice and (vii) In which it is about those who have done the opposite of what they should or wanted.
Likewise, the titles of each of the stories are ironic, full of humor, satire, nostalgia and mischief. For example: “Where there is talk of a subject who, having slept with his wife, instead of with his maid, sent his neighbor there, who cheated on him without his wife knowing anything.”
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Now, obviously, Margarita de Navarra had read Boccaccio, because some of the stories are adaptations of the narratives of El decamerón (novel thirty-five, for example), but what is new is the constant way in which he gives it autonomy to female sexuality and reverses the roles typically defined in love relationships. But we are also faced with macabre and vengeful narratives, such as the novel thirty-two. which is about the adulterous wife who, caught in error, is forced to drink blood from the skull of her dead lover at the hands of her husband.
In short, it uses narrative resources such as everyday life and comedy to present philosophical debates. The plot axis of most of the stories inserted in the collection is love; more specifically, the misery produced by forced relationships, the frustration of unrequited lovers, spite, infidelity and, above all, the impossibility of achieving absolute perfection in love relationships based on a Neoplatonic vision in permanent dialogue with sexuality. , religion and art.
